Bypassing the event would be irresponsible. So here we go again. If you think only wine – never beer or cocktails – should be paired with food, or that beer crazies are all lunkheads, here is an opportunity to prove yourself wrong. It all begins at 6:59 (sunset) on Tuesday, Oct. 8.

The shuffling hordes in Hawaiian shirts and pretzel necklaces are coming to Colorado next month, as they have for more than 30 years, for the country’s No. 1 beer-a-palooza, the Great American Beer Festival.

I’m hoping that sour remains hot, craft session beers establish themselves as a powerful force, and the hopheads (my former tribe) are disappointed – they thought they would take over the world, that beer would become so hoppy-bitter it could double as nail polish remover. But instead, I think brewers increasingly are interested in balance rather than searching for ways to hatch a beverage fermented entirely from humulus lupulus.

Regardless, one thing is for sure – the places where beer meets food have improved quite a bit from the days when the territory did not venture far from hot dogs, wings and barbecue. This year, GABF is spawning food and beer pairing events all over town.

Euclid Hall in Larimer Square, one of Denver’s finer beer-embracing joints, has a bunch of dinners leading up to GABF, and with Boulder’s excellent Avery Brewing Company it also is holding a midnight “breakfast” the first night of the suds fiesta, on Thursday, Oct. 10.

Have you been to the Kitchen in Boulder? If so, you're probably psyched for the opening of The Kitchen Denver.

Our friends over at The Denver Post’s beer blog, First Drafts, checked in this morning with some insight on The Kitchen Denver, the much- anticipated LoDo version of a popular Boulder restaurant — and one that’s less than a week out from its debut.